8 Things You Don’t Know About Me
I’ve only been blogging seriously for a couple of months, so it shouldn’t be too hard for me to find eight things that you lot don’t know about me, right? Well, that’s what I have to do - thanks to the Princess of Press (a.k.a. Lisa Sabin-Wilson) tagging me!
She was tagged by her friend Chelle (who should win an award for the best blog header ever), who was tagged by Venomous Kate (who’s on an enviable mission to “point out and humiliate idiots at every opportunity” - something I’d like to do professionally one day).
So here they are then! Eight things you (probably) don’t (want) to know about me…
10 Most Stupid Client Questions Ever!
One of my greatest pleasures as a web designer is getting the chance to refine my craft but, in contrast to that, one of my greatest burdens is the the number of ridiculous questions that clients have presented me with in the past! Given how long the Internet has been around, and considering the sheer number of sites on the web, you would think that everybody would have at least a basic knowledge of how it all works - but you’d be wrong!
Clients can’t always be expected to understand the complex stuff though - that’s why they pay a designer. But sometimes it would be so much easier if they’d just get a grip!
You’ll need a large spoonful of patience if you’re not going to start alienating your own clients though, because you’re the one with the knowledge. Treat them gently, especially if it’s the first time that they’ve had a web site built! If you know what to expect though, then it should help you deal with the questions when they come!
The Web That Porn Built
Four years ago I wrote an article for a British magazine, looking at the technologies used by the adult industry, asking if they could perhaps end up shaping the future of the Web. While the magazine itself has now sadly vanished, I’m still here - so I thought it might be time to revisit the topic!
Technologies that we were taking for granted in 2003 were originally pioneered (or at least perfected) by the adult sector. Simple things like members-only sites and e-commerce wouldn’t have been what they were back then without porn - but what exactly were the brave new frontiers four years ago, and how much have they shaped the Web as it is today?
Moveable Type Goes Open Source
SixApart have finally released a new beta of their blogging and content management system Movable Type. MT 4.0 is the first major release of the software since 2004 - and comes with the interesting news that SixApart will be moving the application to a GPL open-source licence before the end of this year.
Ironically enough, up until the release of MT 3.0 many users treated the software as open-source - despite the fact that it wasn’t official. When SixApart decided to enforce the licence with the release of MT 3.0 it caused widespread outrage, and this may have been one of the things that took WordPress from obscurity to popularity.
The new version of Movable Type is radically different from previous versions though, with more than 50 new features - including an installation and upgrade wizard, more powerful templating, new bundled themes, and a redesigned user interface. It also integrates social media by offering simple ways to get photos, videos and audio into posts - and there’s a new ratings framework too. Scalability concerns have also been squashed with database caching - increasing the chances of surviving the Digg effect unscathed.
My Personal Experience
I download the new beta yesterday - but gave up after two hours of failing to get my new blog to display! I had to manually change CGI permissions in the root directory, set up the required MySQL database, and figure out where Sendmail was located on my server - before I could even get into the Control Panel!
The admin stuff does looks great though - with an excellent Dashboard and drop-down menu navigation. Given how much has obviously been ‘borrowed’ from WordPress though, it’s a shame it doesn’t even come close in terms of intuitiveness! It took me ages to figure out how to do anything - which might not be a problem if you’re totally green to blogging!
I’m not stupid when it comes to the Internet; I develop in PHP myself, and I’ve been using pre-written scripts and database applications for at least 8 years. I also followed the Getting Started Guide to the letter - so it’s not like I’d done something wrong! Perhaps WordPress has just made me lazy, with it all being so simple…
Special technical note: please DO NOT install MT on to the same domain as your WP blog (even if it’s in a sub-directory). It puts an index.html file into the root of the domain, which typically takes precedence over the default index.php required for WordPress. What you end up with is the MT blog coming up instead of the WP one, if you view it from the root of your domain (i.e. http://paulenderson.com). Feel free to comment if you need more on this, or if you’ve screwed up your blog like I did! 
Conclusion?
Moveable Type 4.0 is definitely a step in the right direction - and it’s heart-warming to see SixApart taking the GPL route. But they’re not going to suceed in drawing people away from WordPress until they’ve seriously improved their backend. Perhaps I’ll give it another go once it’s out of beta though…
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